


Pride Goeth Before the Fall

by orphan_account



Category: Easy Allies RPF
Genre: Discussion of Biphobia, Implied Dysphoria, Misuse of French, Non-binary character, Other, Pride Parades, Some Queer Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ian Hinck is a very nice person who absolutely loves Pride festivals. Ian Hinck is a very nice person who gets worried about people at Pride festivals. Ian Hinck is very nice person who worries about very cute people at Pride festivals, apparently.





	

Ian lives for Pride parades. She loves them, any chance to go and celebrate being herself and people’s identities, she’s all for it. 

She’s weaving through the throngs of people, unable to keep a grin from slipping onto her face, skirt trailing behind her. This dress is one of her favourites, low-collar and short sleeves and done in the non-binary flag colours. She’s painted her nails to match, yellow and white and grey and black, and to say she isn’t proud of it would most definitely be lying. She’s very proud. It took her an hour and a half to get perfect. 

It’s hot, a steady ninety nine degrees with the sun in full show. A group of people, her included, have crowded around a group of performers in the middle of the street. They’re decked out in Pride garb, rainbow shirts and dyed hair, and they’re tossing lit torches back in forth. It’s even hotter in this small huddle of people and Ian is so glad that her dress has short sleeves, because she’s pretty sure she would be dying otherwise. Well, she’s still dying, but less so. Much less so. Some person shuffles in front of her, muttering excuse me’s and pardons. Ian shakes her head in disbelief because he is actually wearing black skinny jeans and a leather jacket and he’s walking closer to the fire than she is. He is definitely going to die.

“You have got to be kidding me.” She says and he whips around, eyes narrowed. “How can you be wearing a leather jacket? And dark jeans? I think you’re going to die, we can’t have that.”

“What?” He manages, eyes wide now.

“Dude- Wait, are you a dude? Can I call you that?” Ian checks and he nods, affirming. “Dude. You’re going to have a heat stroke. Like, I’m not even kidding.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” The guy chuckles. “I think I’ll be alright.”

“Don’t sacrifice your life for some half-baked attempt at looking cool, man.” Ian shakes her head. “Come with me.”

“Where?” He asks, skeptical, but she grabs the sleeve of his jacket.

“To cool the hell down because you look like you’re about to die.” She starts to pull him through the crowd.

“No, really, I’m fine.” He protests. “I’m used to the heat, okay, I’m good. No need to worry, bud, I’m a-okay.” He gives her a double-thumbs up and Ian rolls her eyes.

“You’re still coming with me.”

They end up sitting at a shaded table outside a tiny cafe and Ian buys them both tall bottles of juice. Leather Jacket Man still looks skeptical, rolling the bottle cap across his palm.

“Who are you?” He asks, nearly dropping the cap but catching it at the last second. “Like, I’m not kidding, you’re a videogame NPC. Like, ‘Oh? You’re low on health? Here, have some fucking juice and stay alive. Don’t die on me, come back soon!’” He plasters on a cartoon-ish grin and waves excitedly.

“Apt description.” Ian nods, chuckling. “And I’m Ian. She-slash-her. Person who likes to not see other people keel over because they want to look cool.” He frowns.

“I thought I did look cool.” He says, thumbing the buttons of his jacket, on the edge of complaining, but ending up just sounding pitiful.

“You’d look cooler without your jacket on because you still look like you’re on the verge of death.” Ian points out, wrapping her hands around her bottle of juice. “Cool kids don’t die, y’know. And I’d say you could pull off the cool look, mystery man.”

“It’s Brad.” No longer a mystery man says, laughing as he pulls off his jacket. “Better?” Ian nods, satisfied. She sees his shirt for the first time, also black because of course it would be, of fucking course, but it says ‘buh-bi’ in loopy font, the bisexual flag colours overlaid on the letters.

“Cute shirt.” She compliments and he looks down at it, tugging at the hem.

“Thanks.” He looks back up at her, smiling. “Not gonna lie, I thought when you first talked to me you were talking about my shirt. I was ready to fight you.”

“Oh, god! No!” Ian shakes her head. “Of course not, it’s like actually despicable that people do that. Everyone in the community deserves to come to Pride things.” Brad nods.

“Yeah, exactly. It makes me so mad.” He shakes his head, wrinkling his nose. “Like what the hell? I just came here to have a good time, leave me alone.”

“People are gross.” Ian shakes her head. “You don’t even have to fight them, I’ll do it for you. Fisticuffs at Pride, man. Only the best for a dying cool kid.”

“It’s the honour we get.” Brad acknowledges, tipping his bottle towards her. “We get cute strangers to avenge our bruised egos.”

“Your ego won’t be the only thing that’s bruised.” Ian says, brushing over the fact that he just called her cute, oh my  _ God _ . “It’ll be them, too.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” Brad flips the top onto the table and sets down his now empty bottle. It clinks against the metal of the tabletop, like cutlery on a china plate. “Thanks for the juice, I’ll keep my jacket off for you, yeah?” Ian nods as he stands, but she stays seated, legs crossed..

“Don’t die.” Ian reminds him and he laughs.

“Of course not. See you around, Ian.” He waves, smiling, and melts back into the crowd of people.

She sighs and stays at the table for a while, nursing her juice. Damn, he was cute.

She keeps an eye out for him over the rest of the day, but she doesn’t see him again until a week later when they nearly run into each other in a corner coffee shop.

“What, no juice?” He asks, snickering as she steadies her coffee cup. She huffs as it splashes against her hands..

“You’re not as cool as you think you are.” She retorts and he places a hand over his heart, wounded. He stumbles backward in fake agony and nearly spills his coffee again, barely keeping it from sloshing out. “You’re a loser. Such a loser. Ultimate loser.”

“You are what you eat.” Brad shrugs, then creases his eyebrows in confusion. “I… That… That doesn’t even make sense, what the hell, Brad? What the fuck, Brad? Please excuse Brad, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he never has any idea what he’s doing..”

“Well, I don’t know either, but I’m sitting down for coffee and if Brad likes, he can join me.” Ian offers, gesturing to a small table tucked into a tight corner.

“Why not? I still owe you for the juice, though.” Brad reminds her as they slip into the chairs. Ian puts her cup to her lips and darts her tongue out, tasting it. She makes a face, it’s still too hot. She sets it down with a sigh and looks at Brad, who looks back at her, sipping calmly from his cup, arms almost folded in his leather jacket.

“Take that off, dude, you’re going to die.” Ian shakes her head and Brad rolls his eyes, but puts his cup down and pulls of the jacket.

“I feel like you just want to see my great arms.” Brad shakes his head, pulling his hands out and draping the coat over the back of his chair. Ian nods, approvingly. He’s wearing another nice shirt, something in French scrawled across the front in the same bisexual pride colours.  
“Nice shirt.” Ian compliments and Brad looks down at it, surprised.

“Oh, do you speak French?” He asks, picking up his cup again, tracing his fingers around the lip. Ian would like to know who exactly gave him the right to do that.

“Oh, God no. I know like three things in French. I’m not even kidding. Three.” She holds up the corresponding number of fingers for emphasis. “Three. I took four years of French in high school and now I know three things.”

“Tell me.” Brad presses, leaning forward, smile playing on his lips.

“For all I know you’re fluent or something and you’ll laugh at me.” Ian points out, trying her coffee again. It’s still too hot.

“I am fluent.” Brad agrees. “But when I laugh it won’t be mean. I promise. Promise. ”

“Ugh, fine.” Ian sets her cup down and holds up her hand, ready to tick the three things off on her fingers. “Okay, so  _ oiseau  _ means ‘bird’, don’t ask me why I remember that.  _ Je veux mourir _ means ‘I want to die’, because I was an edgelord, okay? Leave me alone. And there’s a third thing from a poem I wrote that I’m not sure if I remember it right.”

“Well, c’mon. Tell me.” Brad presses and Ian groans.

“You need context for it though, and that’s a lot of poem that I’m not sure if I remember correctly or if you want to hear it at all.” Ian argues and Brad lays his hands flat on the table, as if telling her to go on. Ian groans. “Fine, oh my God. Uh, I think it it was ‘I am a book with a cracked spine, full to the bursting with pages that aren’t mine. Summer is heavy on the city and heavy on my throat. I am stretched too tight, leather bound. Every motion a notion of breaking until I am nothing but fear. Ragged nails on rough skin and dry hair and a mine confined.  _ Pourquoi je ne me sens pas bien? Ce n'est pas mon corps, pas ma peau _ .’” Ian makes a face and picks her coffee up. Brad stays quiet. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Well, it wasn’t bad. It would be good for the poem, I have to say, but next time maybe find someone fluent in French and not like, Google Translate or anything like that.” Brad chuckles and Ian snorts.

“Well, I didn’t have anyone when I wrote it. My friend had just moved back to France and… Well. I felt like I needed some kind of French in it for her.” Ian shrugs, runs a hand through her hair. “C’mon, now tell me what your shirt says.”

“ _ C’est vrais, j’existe. Casse toi. _ ” Brad recites, words rolling off his tongue much more easily than they did from Ian’s. “‘It’s true, I exist. Go away.’ Or, well, it’s honestly more like fuck off.”

“It’s cute.” Ian repeats, nodding. “And yeah, I think fuck off gets the point across better. Where do you get all these cute shirts? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous.”

“There’s a local shop on the other side of the city. I’ll show you,” Brad leans farther over and props his elbows up on the table, lacing his fingers together, “if you go to dinner with me. Tonight.”

“Yeah, alright.” Ian nods, finally taking a sip of her coffee. “Sounds good.”

“One stipulation, though.” He holds up one finger and Ian raises an eyebrow.

“Aren’t I the one being taken out here?” She questions. “Shouldn’t I be the one making the stipulations?”

“No juice.” Brad continues, undeterred, and Ian nearly spits out her coffee.

“I hate you, I’m only in this for the shirts.”

That’s not true and even if Ian returns home that night with eight new non-binary pride shirts, she has a date with Brad the next Wednesday, and she’s arguably more excited about that.

And Brad will hold it over her head forever that two years later at the very same Pride festival, Ian nearly faints. Sure, it might have been because Brad got down on one knee and proposed, but she was also wearing his leather jacket at the time, so who knows if it was actually a borderline heat stroke or not? Not Brad. Ian tries to tell him that it wasn’t. He’s not sure if he believes her and hides the fact that he almost fainted from dropping to his knees too quickly. 

**Author's Note:**

> nicE. short and sweet. you can find me @ taptaptapping.tumblr.com if you hit me up with prompts, i'll do them, if you just want to chat, what the heck? i'll do that too


End file.
